Gemotions

The attic air hung thick with dust motes dancing in the lone sunbeam. Eleanor coughed, pulling the faded floral curtains aside, then resumed rummaging through the trunk. The scent of mothballs and forgotten things filled her nostrils. She'd been expecting the usual – old wedding dresses, chipped teacups, and enough lace to knit a doily the size of a small car. What she unearthed instead sent a shiver crawling up her spine.

A sepia-toned photograph stared back at her. Her grandmother, the fiercely independent woman who always claimed to have been a lonely child, was laughing, clutching the arm of a man who was most certainly not her grandfather. Beside them, a group of people she didn't recognize were smiling and clearly enjoying themselves. Eleanor reread the inscription on the back: “Margot’s Summer Fling, 1938.”

She felt her stomach tighten. The stories she had grown up with, the tales of a stoic young girl overcoming hardship, felt suddenly…wrong.